The present invention generally relates to ultra-wideband communications. More particularly, the invention concerns a method of modulating ultra-wideband pulses for wire and wireless communications.
The Information Age is upon us. Access to vast quantities of information through a variety of different communication systems are changing the way people work, entertain themselves, and communicate with each other. For example, as a result of increased telecommunications competition mapped out by Congress in the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act, traditional cable television program providers have evolved into full-service providers of advanced video, voice and data services for homes and businesses. A number of competing cable companies now offer cable systems that deliver all of the just-described services via a single broadband network.
These services have increased the need for bandwidth, which is the amount of data transmitted or received per unit time. More bandwidth has become increasingly important, as the size of data transmissions has continually grown. Applications such as in-home movies-on-demand and video teleconferencing demand high data transmission rates. Another example is interactive video in homes and offices. The emergence of the Internet saw the largest impact on the telecommunication networks by bringing about the convergence of voice and Internet data traffic. Consequently, carriers and service providers are overhauling the entire network infrastructurexe2x80x94including switches, routers, backbone, and the last mile (i.e., the local loop)xe2x80x94in an effort to provide more bandwidth.
Other industries are also placing bandwidth demands on Internet service providers, and other data providers. For example, hospitals transmit images of X-rays and CAT scans to remotely located physicians. Such transmissions require significant bandwidth to transmit the large data files in a reasonable amount of time. The need for more bandwidth is evidenced by user complaints of slow Internet access and dropped data links that are symptomatic of network overload.
Therefore, there exists a need for a method to increase the bandwidth of wired network or communication system, as well as a wireless network or communication system.
The present invention provides a method of modulating an ultra-wideband signal. The pulse can be transmitted and received wirelessly, or through any wire medium, whether the medium is twisted-pair wire, coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, or other types of wire media.
One embodiment of the present invention provides a pulse modulation method that increases the available bandwidth of a communication system by enabling the simultaneous transmission of conventional carrier-wave signals and ultra-wideband pulses. The method includes modulating data on the transmission rate of the ultra-wideband pulses. That is, the transmission rate of the ultra-wideband pulses carries the data. The modulation and pulse transmission method of the present invention enables the simultaneous coexistence of the ultra-wideband pulses with conventional carrier-wave signals. The present invention may be used in wireless and wired communication networks such as hybrid fiber-coax networks.
Another embodiment of the present invention comprises probability-based manipulation of data prior to its transmission. Lower probability data groups are assigned to lower pulse transmission rates. This increases the average data transmission rate because data transmission rates increase with higher pulse transmission rates.
One feature of the present invention is that the transmitted ultra-wideband pulses have a spectral power density that does not cause interference with other communication signals.
Thus, the ultra-wideband pulses transmitted according to the methods of the present invention enable a significant increase in the bandwidth, or data rates of a communication system.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be appreciated from review of the following detailed description of the invention, along with the accompanying figures in which like reference numerals refer to like parts throughout.